***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Speaker: There, just urge them in and we’ll be on our way. Dr. Willard, we’re delighted to have you and it’s yours. God bless you.
Dallas: Those of you who were here last evening will remember that one of the things I did was to go over the works of Jesus. One of the theme verses of the study is taken from John’s Gospel in which we are told that greater works than these, the works of Jesus, shall ye do. And so we spent some time going over just what the works of Jesus were. And one of the things we did was discuss the Beatitudes and I suggested that some of you try to write one of your own. I wonder how many of you tried that. May I see? Excellent.
One of the ladies shared with me her Beatitudes for the affluent 20th century. I wanted to read them to you. She has nine. Blessed are the Weight Watchers for they shall flourish. She even gives a scripture reference with that. Psalm 92 14. I wondered if she had in mind the proverb, blessed, sorry, the liberal soul shall be made fat. I don’t know. That’s one version of that. The second one is blessed are the depressed for they shall be made joyful. And how much depression there is in our land today. So many people just depressed. Depression is almost an epidemic in some portions of our country. I don’t mean economic depression. I mean psychological depression which is so so severe that many times people simply can’t function. And she gives with that Psalm 35 30 verse 5. Thirdly blessed are the low cost housing residents for they shall have a mansion in glory. Blessed are those on food stamps for they shall be filled. Blessed are those put away in rest homes for they shall see God.
There. Blessed are they. Blessed are they. This really has the spirit of it. They aren’t blessed because they’re put away in rest homes. You remember how we discussed that last evening. They’re blessed because they shall see God. Blessed are the Appalachian children for they shall obtain wisdom. Blessed are the Indians for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the Biafran for they shall be healed, filled, clothed, loved and shall obtain mercy. Blessed are those in prison in foreign nations for my name’s sake. For they shall be called my friends. Isn’t that beautiful? Praise the Lord. That’s what he was talking about.
And there are some people that aren’t on this list and they’re blessed too because of the mercy of God. The kingdom of God is open to all. The promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off. Even as many as the Lord our God shall call. That’s why they’re blessed. That’s the mercy of God. Well, if you haven’t written one already, I hope you’ll write one. I want to give this back to the young lady who gave it to me and I don’t know her name. So if after the lecture today, if she would come, I want to give it back to her. I really am grateful she showed it to me.
Now this evening, if you have your colored sheets, if you take the one on Wednesday, put it before you to take notes on and look at the theme verse, the verse to be memorized, which I ask you to memorize for today. I want to set or review briefly what we’ve been doing. I want to add a verse or two into it.
If we’re going to understand not only the book of Acts but the Bible as a whole, we have to understand that there is a certain fact which God has set before him as a goal to be accomplished. We discussed verses stating this. I want to add one to the list this evening. And this is Ephesians of the first chapter and the tenth verse. You’re going to be studying this next week and you’ll have many opportunities to reflect upon it.
Paul in this passage, the ninth and tenth verses of Ephesians says, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath proposed in himself, that, and here now is the goal, this is the aim, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, that is when everything is ready, when everything is ready, he, that is God, might gather together in one all things in Christ, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Christ.
That’s the goal. And you remember we referred to other passages such as the one I love so much in Habakkuk, where it speaks of the knowledge of the glory of God covering the earth like the waters cover the sea. We referred to the passages in Isaiah and Micah where it speaks of when peace will fill the land, when nature itself will be reconciled, as Paul in the eighth chapter of Romans also speaks, and the bitter steam, the poison and hatred and animosity which is seen in nature itself, subjected to vanity, as Paul mentioned, subjected to vanity, will be delivered from that vanity. The lion will lay down with the lamb, the child will play with the poisonous snake, safely. Sword shall be beaten into plowshares.
That’s the aim. That’s going to happen, you know that? It doesn’t matter what you or I do, really, it’s going to happen. We can have a part in it, but it’s going to happen. God has proposed it, and he’s going to accomplish it.
Now, we set that before us, and that leaves us with some interesting questions. How is he going to do it? Have you seen Terminal Man? Read the book Terminal Man? The man with a computer unit built into his skull, plugged into a computer. He’s a terminal in the sense that he’s a computer terminal. Is God going to wire us all up, come down and rewire us? Control us like that? Dave has been talking about that. The pastor mentioned it just a moment ago. That’s not God’s way. God’s way is to win us. God’s way is to lead us. I love the old word woo. Overwhelm us with his attention and love and his truth. Yes, overwhelmed in the sense in which the beloved is overwhelmed by the lover. Woo us, lead us. That is the message.
Now, what it means is that we go through many stages. That verse says the fullness of the dispensation of time, and that’s referring to a time which is ahead. But you remember we’re also told that it was in the fullness of time that God sent his son, born under the law, right? To redeem those that are under the law. He did it at the right time. He didn’t do it just after Adam and Eve pulled their boo-boo, right? No, it was in the fullness of time. And likewise, it is through a process of stages.
Now, the main stage that we’re looking at in the Old Testament is the stage in which he calls the people out of bondage, forms them into a nation, gives them a law, goes with them through centuries of misunderstanding, willful sin, mistakes, but continually forms those people. You know, God doesn’t lose any time. God is not sitting around somewhere waiting. He’s working. He’s accomplishing his purposes all the time. Remember that. No time is wasted. This time is not being wasted. God is accomplishing his purposes.
Now, we have our little viewpoint and we get obsessed with things and we can’t see the whole picture. And sometimes most of what we could see we neglect. We don’t really take time to look at it because we’re obsessed with our problems and our projects and all of these things. And so we don’t really look at things. But God is accomplishing something now.
You ever hear people talk about God with Russia? Well, now, that’s true only to an extent. Russia doesn’t have the option of getting out of God’s hand. China doesn’t either. And thank God the United States doesn’t either. It doesn’t have that option. God is going somewhere with it.
Now, within that plan, individuals and groups of individuals like this church or like the Jewish nation, they have a lot of options. They can choose to participate in that plan or to reject it. And Jesus said to the Jewish nation in one of his parables, he said, God is taking the kingdom of God away from you and he’s going to give it to a people that bring forth the fruits thereof. And that’s what happened.
The theme verse for this evening, as you look on your sheet, is the 28th chapter of Acts and the 28th verse. It is a culmination of the process of the Book of Acts. It is the words of Paul at what so far as we know is the final attempt on his part to win the Jewish nation over for the people of the Jews that he met. And he says, let it be known to you, therefore, that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will receive it.
Now, you see, that’s the next stage. That’s the next stage in the process by God, by which God is going to reconcile all things unto himself. The process by which he will unify everything in heaven and in earth in Christ. The age of the Gentiles. But now the age of the Gentiles is not an age of non-Jews any more than the age of the Jews excluded the Gentiles. The emphasis here is not upon exclusion of the one or the other. Rather, it is upon the purpose of God in working in a special way with a certain group of people. And this is the age of the Gentiles.
Now, this evening, we’re going to spend some time looking at just how the gospel went to the Gentiles in the first place. And having studied what you have with us thus far, you would expect that it did not go by any conscious intention on part of the people involved. It didn’t go because one day down in Jerusalem they were all sitting around in the temple and saying, hey, let’s go preach to the Gentiles. That was the farthest thing from their mind. And we want to look some at that development this evening.
But first of all, let’s solidify what we’ve gained by just reading a few passages which show the community of God, the new community of God now as it is formed within the Gentile nation.
First of all, in the second chapter, the 41st verse of the Book of Acts. This is after the first initial breakthrough, the sermon by Peter, where Peter stood up and he talked and God acted. And the result was a tremendous conviction of the truth that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, contrary to what everyone had believed Jesus Christ was the Messiah.
You must not underestimate the kind of almost total upheaval this meant for these people. What it meant was not it wasn’t just an admission that Jesus was an all right guy. To accept Jesus as the Messiah was to reconstruct the whole idea of what they thought the Messiah was going to be like and therewith to accept a total reconstruction of what it meant to be a Jew. That was quite a conceptual wrenching thing. God accomplished it. Peter didn’t accomplish it. He just stood up there and talked and God acted.
And you remember what we said last night, the mark of the presence of the Spirit of God in a group or in a man is that the effect is incommensurable with the action. You cannot estimate the gap between the effect realized and the action performed. D.L. Moody after he had his great experience in which the Lord just rolled over him and over him and over him with the consciousness of his love went back and preached the same sermon. Do you know that? Preached exactly the same sermon. But if you hadn’t known it beforehand you would never have guessed it. Because God worked with him in a way which he had never worked with him before. And those same sermons were preached but thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people experienced the very conviction which we see here in the case of Moody. In the case of Peter it’s happened with person after person after person after person. Whitefield? The Wesleys? Finney? We could go on and on about people just in the American history of ministers who have experienced the accompaniment of God in their work.
And that’s what happened with Peter. A great conviction came. Many people were converted. Their minds were turned around. Their whole view of who they were as Jews was reconstructed. A Jew was supposed to be a person who followed a Messiah which dominated the world in a certain way. They had to change that. They no longer could think in those terms. Now a Jew was a person who accepted the Messiah who got himself killed. Hung on a cross. Wiped out. A Messiah who left after a while. Couldn’t even be found. Went up into the sky and they stood there looking, trying to figure out where he went. He’s gone. Gone. That didn’t fit into their conception of the Messiah.
But now out of this there came a community. In the 41st verse, then they that gladly received his word were baptized. 3,000 souls were added unto the 120 people who were in the initial group.
Now what did they do? I want you to look at point A up here. The activities of this group. They continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ teaching. And fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayer. And the 46th verse. And they continuing daily with one accord in the pimple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added daily such as should be saved.
Now compare that to chapter 4. This is after more preaching, more deeds, more conversions. And chapter 4, verse 32, 33. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul. Unity. Unity. They were of one heart and one soul. The Holy Spirit created a unity of a huge mass of people, thousands upon thousands of people. Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and grace was upon them all.
These people were together constantly, studying, talking, praying, preaching. That was their continual activity. How were they supported? What were their provisions? Look at the verses please and since we’re in the fourth chapter, let’s take the fourth chapter. Verse 32 and then 34 through 37. We just read 32. No one said they had anything of their own. 34. Neither was there any among them that lacked. For as many as were possessive of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet and distribution was made to every man according as he had need. It goes on to speak of how Barnabas, the son of consolation. A great man under the spirit of God, a great man. He had many lands and he sold it and brought the money and laid it to the Apostles feet.
The provisions were made by the people giving the things they had to the need as they arose. Now, we want to think carefully about this because people have a tendency to read something in the Bible and say, well let’s go right out and do this. Now let’s think about that before we do it, okay? Like the man who read the passage where it says of Judas that he went out and hanged himself and then turned over and read the passage which said go thou and do likewise. It’s in the Bible, right? Go thou and do likewise. Well, you have to be careful. It’s a dangerous book.
Many folk come to the Bible to try to find things that will support whatever wild ideas or unwild ideas are already in their head. The Bible is not here to prop up anybody. It is here to stand over and enlighten and guide. It is nobody’s plaything. It’s the written Word of God. It is holy. It is separate. It is something apart, not ordinary. You don’t degrade it by using it for your purposes. I can’t do that. Handling the Word of God deceitfully as some people do. Paul mentioned that. No, it’s not for our youth. We have to be very careful with it now.
Let’s ask ourselves, what was going on here? What was the purpose of this period in the life of the church? What was being accomplished? Well, let me just tell you. What was being accomplished was there was being purchased a brief time for the development of character in these people.
Now, we’re going to see immediately that they needed it badly. These people were not perfect. And when I say not perfect, I don’t just mean that they weren’t doing the right thing. Because, you see, as the Bible teaches us clearly, being right is so much deeper and being wrong is so much deeper than just the things we do. It is a matter of character, of the inward dispositions. And we see immediately in the weaknesses of this group just how weak and how much development was needed.
But let me stress the point. The purpose of this time, when people were giving of their goods to support a group, some had no money and they lived off of others. They had all things in common. The purpose was to provide an interim period for this little group of people to think things through that they had experienced. For them to learn, for them to grow, for them to master some very important things which we’re going to see in just a moment. And in order to provide that period of time, it was needed that this special provision be made.
Circumstances dictate policies. You put the circumstances together with the principles and you get the policy for the time. One of the sad things is how often we then turn the policy into a principle and elevate the tradition of men into the word of God. But that being true, still we can’t avoid the fact that policies are determined by the circumstances and to understand what they mean we have to look at the time.
Now nowhere, nowhere is it indicated that a general principle is that people should get rid of their goods and give them to people who have needs. That is never indicated. Never. There are some interesting exceptions which may seem to you to be exceptions and we might want to discuss those privately or later, but I want to hurry on now.
Because given the fact that the purpose of this interim period was to allow the development of character. Let’s look at the weaknesses. Okay.
In doing so let me turn briefly to 1 John the second chapter and the 16th and 17th verses. Because we find here in the book of Acts a manifestation of two fundamental weaknesses which are picked out by John in his little epistle. 1 John the second chapter and the 16th and the 17th verses. Let’s just do the 16th verse. For all that is in the world, what John does is he gives you a threefold analysis of the contents of the world.
Now what is the world? Well the world doesn’t consist of dirt. It isn’t a planet that whirls around the sun. That isn’t the world. Let me throw out just a general description of what the world is. And in order to do so you have to talk about the flesh. Because flesh is the individual energies of the natural ordinary human being. The world is the energy of the flesh organized into social, economic, political and all of the other kinds of systems where you have groups of people working together on the basis solely of those natural energies. That’s the world.
Now John looking at the world says the world’s got three things in it. The lust of the flesh. The lust of the eyes. And the pride of life. The lust of the flesh are fairly easily identifiable. They include in general all of those things by which we wish to release and gratify our bodies. It’s interesting that these particular things do not enter into the story of the book of Acts at this point. And the fact is the lust of the flesh is the easiest part of the world to deal with.
But now the lust of the eyes is a different thing. The lust of the eyes is the desire to look good. It is the desire to look good. You see, I don’t see myself except through your eyes. The poet says, would some pie the gift to see us, gift to gee us to see ourselves as itters see us. But the truth is, unless I have some objective point like the word of God or some conceptualizations which will help me, I am most concerned not about how I look but how I look to you. That’s the lust of the eyes. That’s the natural way of human beings. Now you check that out, would you? And you check to see how much of the world is operated by the lust of the eyes. The desire to look good.
That’s what got Ananias and Sapphira. You know that? Listen to this. A certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession. Nothing wrong with that, was there? And they kept back part of the price. Nothing wrong with that. They saw Barnabas sell his position, his land, and he gave the money to the group. Now they thought, let’s do that too. But wait a moment. They kept back. That didn’t just mean that they didn’t give all of it. That meant that they gave the impression of giving all of it and didn’t. His wife also being privy to it and brought part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
Now we don’t know here that they had to even tell any explicit lie. That they had to say, all right fellow, here’s all of it. My reading of it would simply indicate that everyone was selling their possessions and giving all of their money and the assumption was that when a person gave the money, they gave all of it. And he just stepped right into that and took advantage of it, but he kept it back. Some back.
Now Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not your own? It was you didn’t have to sell it. After it was sold, wasn’t it in your own power? You could have just took part, given the other part, going on your own power. Now why have you conceived this thing in thine heart? Well, you know very well why he conceived it in his heart. It is because he wished to appear in a certain way in the eyes of the group.
The lust of the eyes defeated. The eye is lust, you know. There is a lust in us to appear in a certain way. Oh, we hunger to appear in a certain way. What do you think all those ads on television are about? Take a TV guide and come through it. Do you know what the main advertisers are? Fat and hair. Fat and hair. You need some hair? There’s an ad in the Los Angeles Times a few years ago. It shows this poor detective bald-headed man coming home with his munchbock in his hand. And it says, how do you tell your wife that bald men get fired first?
Awfully important. And Ananias fell to that. And then in the fifth verse, Ananias hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. And great fear came upon them. And the young men rose and wound him up and carried him out and buried him in about the space of three hours. Afterwards his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
Now Peter gave her every chance in this world to clear this thing up. Look what he said. Tell me, did you sell the land for such and such an amount? And she said yes for so much. That was the lie that she and Ananias had agreed upon. They had their stories together. And then Peter said to her, now listen, how is it that you have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out. And they did.
You know, I’ve known many people who thought that if they just got some of the gifts of the Spirit, it would entirely straighten out everything in them. You start in fooling around with gifts of the Spirit, you’re on dangerous ground. You’re on very dangerous ground. And I would give the general counsel to any person never to pray for the gifts of the Spirit until they are sure they are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit. You are never safe with it.
On the other hand, no church is safe only with the fruits of the Spirit and not the gifts of the Spirit. I’d love to spend two or three hours just talking about the relationship between the gifts of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit. But let me just say that one thing again. Never ask for the gifts unless you’ve got the fruit. If you’ve got the fruit, you can stand the gifts. And there won’t be half someone come along and carry you out like they did Ananias and Sapphira.
You see, the gifts do not indicate character. Man comes along, gives me a million dollars, that doesn’t show that I’ve got any character at all. If I earn a million dollars, that shows something about me depending on the way I earned it. But a gift does not indicate anything at all about the character of the individual. A lot of bad theology around to the effect that somehow if God gives a person a gift, that he’s putting his stamp of approval on them. Not so. Don’t believe it. God has his purposes to accomplish with his gifts. And in general, God is much more liberal than we give him credit. And he doesn’t just go around with candy for the good boys and girls and wax for the bad boys and girls. And if he’s got a purpose to accomplish, he may accomplish that through some person without necessarily checking into their credentials as well as you or I might like to and saying no if they don’t check out right. God has his purposes. Now he’s going to accomplish them.
One wants to be very careful when working around this business of gifts. One wants to be very careful to make sure to do it too. One wants to be very careful about that. Because the church cannot function rightly without the gifts of the spirit. Cannot do it.
Another flaw, another weakness in the character of these people is seen very clearly in the sixth chapter of the book of Acts. And I want to comment briefly on this because it has a bearing on what is going to come later.
In the sixth chapter of the book of Acts we have an argument breaking out within the body of Christ. One thing we have to say in reading the first verse is we must remember that all of the people involved are Jews. That is somewhat misleading then to read as it says, and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there rose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews. Now what that means is this, that there rose a controversy between the Jews who were from Grecian, and that’s a loose term, Grecian cities, and Jews which were located mainly in Jerusalem. This was still a Jewish sect. The idea that there should be Gentiles out and out of Greece in the group was still unthought of. Proselytes, yes, and one of the people we shall see in a moment was a proselyte, but a proselyte was a Jew.
But the problem was simply this, that the widows of those who were Jewish in their location, Grecian in their location, the idea was, well, they’re not getting their share of the goods which are passed out in the common feedings and distribution.
The way this was handled is one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see. The twelve, that is the apostles, called the multitude of the disciples together and said, now look, friends, it isn’t sensible for us to leave the word of God and serve the table to make sure that everyone gets an equal share. So look out among you seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom that we may appoint over the business. And we ourselves will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
You can’t say too much for the sense of these people about what was important in the ministry. The job of the ministry is prayer and the ministry of the word in that order. In that order, prayer and the ministry of the word.
But now I want to go on from that to just point out what happened. I want you to look at the list of people that were appointed to settle this dispute. And the saying pleased the whole multitude and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and Philip. We’re going to hear more of those two. And Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.
You notice anything peculiar about those names? They’re all Greek. They’re all Greek. Isn’t that beautiful? Let the aggrieved party judge. See that spirit in that group? Let the aggrieved party judge the king. The liberality of those people went to the group that was complaining and said take people from your own group to settle. This is a great move forward because the snob appeal of your ranking depending on whether you live in Asia Minor or in Jerusalem was tremendous. And the great thing that these people who lived in and around Jerusalem could let the Greek of the group decide the issue, showed that there was a movement of the Spirit of God in the direction which it had to go. Because they were to be witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
Now, once this little rift was settled, the Word of God moved forward with great speed. The seventh verse, the Word of God increased and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And a great company of priests were obedient to the faith. Notice that phrase, a great company of priests. The initial opposition which the church had faced was from the priests. The first great challenge came mainly from the high priest and the Sadducees. As I put up here, the Jewish vessel attacks its treasure. The Jewish rulers and the Sadducees attacked the apostles. Peter and then some of the other apostles were given a very bad time by these people. And then the priests themselves began to be converted.
Stephen was a mighty man of God. And he debated with these people. And he did wonders and miracles. And they seemed to have had set discussion in which people from various parts of the Jewish world came together to argue. Mainly with Stephen. And in the tenth verse it says they were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which he spake. And so they got some false witnesses and they brought him to trial.
And Stephen burned their hides. That is the only way you can put it. He took their religious history. And he preached to them things they could not deny. And then he wound up with these astonishing verses. Verse 51 of chapter 7 and following. Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised of heart and ears. Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised of heart and ears. Why do you always resist the Holy Ghost?